The Hand of God
by cowgirlfromhell
Summary: Spoilers for Season 4. Six months after splitting up, Sam and Dean are headed for a fateful reunion in Mexico. Sequel to "Sometimes They Forget."
1. Chapter 1

August 2008

Armadillo Infante

Mexican State of San Luis Potisi

(Sam Winchester)

Did you ever imagine you were blind? Close your eyes in the shower and feel around for the soap, the shampoo, or feel your way along a wall for the light switch in a dark room? Not even close. Close your eyes and wave your hand in front of them and you'll see a shadow, very faint but it's there.

Now me, I'm blind as the proverbial bat, now and forevermore. When it happened, when I killed the demon and it 'turned' and I couldn't bare to look at it anymore, I felt a pain in my head that I'll never forget. When it was done, I couldn't see, not even the faintest shadow. This must be what it's like to be buried alive.

My face was wet and I thought I was crying but I know what tears taste like and I know what blood tastes like. I put my fingers up to my face and followed the wetness right up to my eyes and when I rubbed my fingers to try and clear away the blood, they just slipped past my eyelids and into the holes where my eyes used to be.

And before I could even comprehend what had happened or wonder what had happened I heard 'em coming, shouting, and babbling in Spanish. I heard men, women and children and instead of being happy that I'd dispatched their local demon, they were pissed. I heard 'em and then I felt 'em. They knocked me to the ground and began their version of the Mexican hat dance on my face while dragging me down the street.

I can't see where they took me but I can feel it, a kind of trembling, really faint but it makes me feel like there's electricity in my veins and it makes me sick to my stomach. I know it's a church and I'm chained up outside but I probably smell too bad now to take refuge inside, even if the villagers thought I was worthy.

So I sit out in the broiling sun, which I'm sure is daytime, and in the freezing cold, which has to be night and they never stop coming. First it was just the town folk, then the word spread and they come from Alvares and La Morena and as far away as Cerro de San Pedro. They come see the blind freak and all it costs them is their self-respect, especially those who spit on me and worse...and they're not all human.

I can feel the demons. I can smell 'emeven over my own stench and there's someone else out there. Someone who smells like, oh, I don't know, like a demon with a black heart of gold and right about now she smells like she's scared to death. So much for the cavalry.

Things could be worse though. I'd laugh and slap my thigh but I'd probably miss and it's not really all that funny. As I say, it could be worse. They could be starving me to death but they do feed me. They feed me and because I can't see what it is I figure that if I don't get sick it's food. And they want me alive.

I can't see but I can hear...everything...and, being totally immersed in their culture for at least three months before my unfortunate accident, I can understand what they're going on about, day in and day out. El Mano de Dios is on his way. The Hand of God is a rock star in this world of angels and demons and these people are not only true believers but they are also true fans.


	2. Chapter 2

August 2008

Mexican State of San Luis Potisi

(Dean Winchester)

The Impala's crying and my heart's broken. Okay, not really but I am flat on my damn back underneath her and water's drip, drip, dripping out of the water pump. I think for a moment that I should drink some, a fast death from coolant preferable to a slow death from dehydration but I opt for the latter and crawl out from under my baby.

I was told that there's a demon I need to find, somewhere in Bumfuck, Mexico, and my baby and I were well on our way when she sprung a leak. I'm lookin' at her now and dad would be royally pissed. She's covered in so much dust and grime, that she looks like she's been painted primer gray in this glaring 'burn the meat right off of your bones' sun. It hotter than hell and I oughta know.

Down here they call me 'La Mano de Dios', the Hand of God. I used to laugh because I know what I do with 'my hand', a lot, but now the name only makes me uncomfortable. When the people of this godforsaken country find out it's me they treat me like I'm a saint instead of the unmitigated sinner I know I am. Besides, if I am La Mano de Dios, then why can't I just wave my hand over the Impala and bring her back to life, you know, lay hands on her and heal her?

In this perfect world I'd be richer that Bill Gates because every time I kill a demon, and these people do tend to believe in their demons, they wanna give me all their worldly possessions. But they ain't got shit and I even feel bad taking their food.

Besides sometimes killing demons with my secret weapon, that every demon knows about and wants, is like shooting fish in a barrel. I feel like making up a t-shirt that says 'I went to hell and all I got was this lousy nail'. That would make 'em think twice before trying to eviscerate me. The Colt could only kill some of the demons some of the time but a nail from Christ's cross...it does the trick every time.

And then there are the hellhounds. It still hurts like a sombitch whenever I whisper one up but you'd have to go some to find a meaner junkyard dog and I don't even have to feed 'em.

Anyway, I'd been hearing through the crapvine for months that there's some big bad ass demon down in a little town in Mexico called Armadillo Infante and I really didn't give a crap. Then Castiel comes to me cryin' about another of his bffs getting killed so here I am, up Shit Creek in the great state of San Luis Potisi, Mexico without a paddle...or a water pump...or a car.

If I leave her behind I know my baby will be well taken care of, towed to the nearest town and someone will go to Santa Rita, or maybe even to San Luis Potisi, where cars from the 60's are the rule rather than the exception, and pull a water pump and, just as if God had laid hands on her, she'll be as good as new when I get back.

But right now, Castiel, you son of a bitch, I need a ride.

Not a hour later my heavenly chariot comes to me in the guise of an ancient Ford flatbed loaded with movie cliché wooden crates of chickens. More rust than metal but at least it's going in my direction. The driver, Manuel Juan Lopez, a skinny runt of a man and his wife Pilar, who is easily three times his size, plus three wide eyed kids are crammed into the cab and, when the dude guesses who I am, not many gringos this far south, he's gonna make the family walk so I can ride inside with him. I convince him that I like it in the back with the chickens and the chicken crap and after much apologizing and kowtowing, we're finally on our way.

The road to Cerro de San Pedro and points south is pretty busy. We've passed exactly three other vehicles and a number of people on foot, a veritable traffic jam this far into the hills. All of them, I'm guessing, are on their way to Armadillo Infante, the tiny town where El Diablo is rumored to be hiding out.

Manny tells me that El Diablo isn't the first spiritual visitor to that tiny dot on the map at the end of a one lane dirt road. Up until 1951 it was know as "Valley of the Visitation of Holy Mary to St. Elizabeth of the Armadillos" but it must have been a bitch writing that on an envelope because now it's just called Armadillo Infante or Child of the Armadillo. It's a pretty unremarkable place, from what I've been told, for laying claim to such an auspicious occasion as the Virgin Mary popping in for coffee and gossip with Saint Elizabeth.

But instead of heading to Baby Armadillo, I jump off in Cerro de San Pedro because I'm starving and in serious need of some R & R. The first is do-able, even down to some pie, and the first R is taken care of when I check into a small hostel. The second R is a lot harder now. One of the many downfalls, and there are plenty believe me, of being an "Instrument of God" is that no women, good or bad wants to blow a guy who might just be an amigo cercano of the Almighty's.

Cerro de San Pedro, aka Pedro's Kiss, is a town of many stone buildings nestled at the breast of a huge open pit mine owned by Metallica Resources. Awesome name but the mine threatens to destroy the town and poison everything for miles around it, so who's worried about a little old demon one town over? Only a superstitious and spiritual few, so I may just get lucky.

The magic mirror in the communal bathroom that I share with my fellow pilgrims is like the portrait of Dorian Gray. Been rode hard and put up wet comes to mind and so does Bobby when I run my hand across my face and feel whiskers that would make a goat envious. I shit, shower and shave and all's well with the world for a little while at least, although the brand on my back has started to itch, usually a harbinger of nastiness to come. But the night is young and there's a blue agave plant out there that's given its life for me and I need to pay my respects so I'm off to the nearest bar.


	3. Chapter 3

(Sam Winchester)

I'm getting cold again. The breeze has dropped off so it must be getting dark. It's funny how my audience changes when the sun goes down. In the daytime it's mine workers, curious mothers with squalling babies or kids poking me with sticks until I hiss at them and they run away in terror. I always liked kids even knowing how cruel they can be.

The drunks come in the night, too tanked to realize that that's when the demons come, too. They stand shoulder to shoulder, the humans spitting out curses, the demons trying to get up the nerve to rip me limb from limb but the iron chains and the close proximity to the church keeps them all at bay.

My last sighted memory is of a demon's ass, Ruby's backside to be exact, when she turned spaded tail and ran off on her size six cloven hooves. Nice ass but she could have let me know what was coming. It's so hard to get good help nowadays. She's too afraid to come within a thousand miles of me now and I don't think she fears my 'wrath'. It's something all together different, something that's put the fear of God into her. Ha! I made another joke and I'd slap my thigh but...you know.

Since I've been sitting here with nothing to do but to listen and to think and to occasionally bark and pull on my chains like a rabid dog, I wonder where Dean is, what he's been doing since he walked out of Angel's apartment six months ago? After hooking up with Ruby again the two of us have been pretty much keeping to the shadows and out of signal range while I honed my skills as the ultimate party pooper, making hosts puke up demons like keg standing frat boys puke up beer on a Saturday night, all of it gross and disgusting.

Most of the time we can save a host but sometimes not and I just can't seem to learn to be as laid-back about it as Ruby...or even Dean. That's another reason I'm layin' it all down. Everything used to be so cut and dried for me, good and evil, black and white but now there's only gray and I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. Either way I end up damned. And I'm so tired, not just physically and mentally but spiritually, too. I'm too tired to get up on my knees and I don't remember what prayers to say or who to say them to and death sounds sweeter and sweeter to me.

As the hours pass, I plan my suicide and, in the unlikely event that La Mano de Dios is the name of some half-assed Mexican wrestler and not the walking on water demon killer these people think he is and he doesn't kill me, I need a back up plan. I'm finished as a hunter and I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend the rest of my life as a cripple. I've decided to trade in all my altruistic bull crap for a short, sweet life of wallowing in pity, then eating a gun. Now that's a plan.

I'd like to see Dean one more time before I go...what I mean is that I'd like to be with him one more time, to hug him and apologize but I'm afraid. Afraid he'll see what I've become, that essentially I spit on his sacrifice and did the one thing he begged me not to. Suddenly I'm thankful that, even if he did come, I can never see the look on his face.


	4. Chapter 4

(Dean Winchester)

Well, I paid my respects to señor Agave last night. I didn't get lucky but I did get the mother of all hangovers because no one in the small bar hidden well off of the main drag would let Ol' Mano pay for a single shot of tequila and, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I'm paying for it dearly this morning.

A lot of theories were floating around the bar as to actually who...or what...is in Armadillo Infantes. Everyone seems to agree that there are two of them, a man and a woman and that they waylaid poor Father Galeari on his was to morning lauds just before sunup and cursed him so badly that he went up in flames, lighting up the whole village like it was high noon.

When the sun finally did come up there were bats, owls and all sorts of other creatures of the night, either dead or flopping around on the ground as...well, as blind as bats. They also found the dude just sitting there in the street, clutching the padre's wooden crucifix, his eyes burned out of his head and no sign of the priest or of the girl.

I'm betting they didn't find any trace of Father Galeari's body because he was a 'friend' of Castiel's and made up of goodness and light, like a Hostess Twinkie. Where the girl went is anybody's guess. Maybe she got caught in the blast furnace of heavenly light and was fried. And the dude, it sounds like he stirred up a real shit storm in the village and is in a world of hurt for killing their only priest.

Hopefully the iron chains have held him so I can gank him for the Lord because the priest of the Temple of the Immaculate Conception really wasn't a priest or named Galeari or even a human being. He was what you call a Galearri, a low ranking angel sent to earth to set people on the path to righteousness. A pretty thankless job because everybody knows that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

And now, after hitching a ride with a tow truck driver named Santiago and a little hair of the dog, I'm standing on the main street of Baby Armadillo just about to head out to the OK Corral. Okay, to the Temple of the Immaculate Conception. Angel's love bite is throbbing and the scars on my belly are burning red hot because, as the crowd begins to grow, I know that there are just as many demons as humans out there. I think a hellhound or two might not be a bad idea for show and I have the nail in my hand, which makes me Batman.

I can see the poor schmuck in the distance, his back to the street, his head resting against the wall of the church and someone in the crowd shouts it's "el diablo blanco" but after being chained out in the bone bleaching sun for so long, he's more than likely diablo bronceado or el diablo que apesta. I come closer and get a whiff. Man, even hell didn't smell this bad.

I take a few steps closer to him and three people step out of a side street, a woman with long dark hair, a short skirt and platform heels, a disheveled lawyer looking dude in a cheap suit and a teen aged kid in torn jeans and tie dyed tee shirt. Seeing them I know things are quickly going to the dogs and, yeah, this is really gonna hurt but I need to concentrated on the big bad chained to the wall. Turning to look at the three demons I just say the magic words 'sic 'em' and all hell breaks loose.

The hell hounds start growling and ripping and shredding but the only thing the humans in the crowd can see are three screaming people writhing on the ground and fountains of blood spurting into the air. They start running, tripping over themselves to get away, and soon it's just me, three dead bodies and Castiel's object of retribution.

Never moving a muscle during the hell hound attack, the dude slowly lifts his head and turns to look at me but there's no way he can see me. His eyes are gone and the holes are filled with maggots but I would still recognize him anywhere. I kneel down in the filth littered around him and, forcing myself not to puke, I take his face in my hands. He tries to shake free until I tell him, "It's me, Sammy, it's Dean."

I can see the wheels turning in his head as he takes it in. His mouth opens and he gapes like a fish a few times then tells me with a pitiable laugh, "Dude, I guess I fucked up."

"Yeah," I tell him, "You fucked up, baby brother. You ganked an angel."


	5. Chapter 5

(Sam Winchester)

It really is Dean. I can't believe my eyes. I so need to stop making not so funny references to my state of un-well being. What I can't believe is that, after all these months and after all these miles, it's Dean who's come to put me out of my misery. I grab him by the arm, pull him close and think 'sorry about the smell, bro.

"You're here then...to kill me?" I ask him but I drop off the inflection at the end and he's gotta know I'm not asking a question but begging him to do it.

"No way, Sammy," he says and I think I can hear rumbling in the heavens above and wonder if a lighting bolt's not far behind.

"Dude, it's okay," I assure him. I'm in so much pain, in my body and in my heart, that it would be a mercy killing and I've finally learned to live with such things. Dean feels that when you can't save the host, it's probably a blessing in disguise and I hope; no I need him to feel that way about me, too.

Dean pulls out of my grasp and I feel the chain pulling tight around my neck as something hot, really, really hot sears the skin down to my collarbone and he says "Sorry, it's the nail."

The relic burns everyone who tries to touch it but him and I'm no exception. The chain does slip from around my neck and Dean pulls me to my feet and says "Sorry" again when I grunt in pain. He then tells me the villagers are starting to drift back and we need to get the hell out of Dodge.

But I dig my feet in and he almost pulls me over and I shout at him, "Dean, don't! I can't take it anymore, any of this and you need to finish what you came to do when you crossed the border into Mexico. You couldn't have found me unless someone or something told you where I was."

He tells me some dude named Castiel told him only that there was some 'angel killer' that he needed to take care of in Mexico and I know right away that the 'dude' is an angel himself and that I mistakenly killed one of his brethren. When did angels become so vindictive I wonder and Dean says that when angels fall, they don't really have that far of a drop before they hit rock bottom. He adds that there's a fine line between Hostess Twinkies and Drake's Devil Dogs.

I apologize for keeping him from lunch and he just laughs and starts to pull me again but I stop and when I push him away I trip over something and fall flat on my face. I smell blood and sulfur but not Ruby.

"Watch it Sammy, you don't want to get demon slime all over your filth," Dean says then adds as an afterthought, "We'll get someplace safe, get something to eat, find a Laundromat and you'll feel like a new man."

"Jackass," I call him then get all serious on his ass. "Dean, I don't want to live like this," I tell him pointing to where I think my eyes used to be. I feel the squirming mass therein and it makes me want to die that much more.

He's quiet for a long time wondering, I'm sure, what he would do if it was him in my place. Then he just says, "Fuck it, Sammy. I'm sick and tired of it, too. Just come with me so these ungrateful sons of bitches don't kill us both and I promise if I can't talk some sense into you, I'll do whatever you want," and I can tell by his voice that he's just made me a promise that he'll keep.


	6. Chapter 6

(Dean Winchester)

Oh, man, I'm suffering from hellhound remorse. Not because I called 'em but because now I'm payin' the price. How can something so awesomely awesome be so painful? Oh yeah, because it's evil. My scars feel like they're being done over, this time with a red hot fireplace poker and I'm brought to my knees pulling Sam down with me and I grind out a pain filled curse. Sam tries to tell me to leave him, to save myself, but as I look around I know that it not an option. I curse again because the crowd is getting bigger and closer and if they had hay rakes, lederhosen and torches it'd be just like in the movie Frankenstein.

"Come on Sammy!" I shout and pull him up by his arm just in time to see a truck barreling down the street towards us. Great, I think, a demon hit and run but the truck slides to a stop and Santiago jumps out. He pushes me and Sammy around to the passenger side and shoves us into the cab and we're out of Armadillo Infantes like a bat outta hell, Iago's tow, a battered 1949 Mercury, swinging back and forth wildly on the hook in back.

Sam keeps his face turned toward me and Santiago seems to have no desire to look at either of us. I start to thank him but he stops me. He says he doesn't know if what he's doing is right; only that he feels compelled to do it.

An hour later Santiago's tow truck labors mightily as he drives up one of the drainage ditches that pass for roads in the mountains and, coming up over a rise, I can see a small, run down cabin tucked into the mountainside, fairly well protected on three of its four sides by solid rock. It's a hunting cabin and has been used as a hideout for bandits for years and I can picture the bad guys riding in on horses, fresh from robbing a bank. Iago tells me that it's used by drug smugglers now and that, because his cousins are all pretty much locked up in jail for the time being, we should be okay here until he comes back with food and news.

Promising to come back as soon he can, Sam and I stand in front of the cabin. I watch as the truck heads back down the ditch and marvel that the Merc's still attached then lead Sam, who's doing a pretty good impression of a zombie, inside. As far as hovels go, this one is pretty small, filthy and infested so the vermin we bring in with us should feel right at home.

At least its got a hand pump that still works so we have water and there's kerosene for the two glass lamps on the fireplace mantel and lye soap. If I were McGuyver I could probably make a bomb but, in the meantime, we'll starve to death because the cupboards are bare. No food, not even a finger bone for a hellhound. I do find a fairly new first aid kit and instructions in Spanish for treating a bullet wound.

I'm feeling better. My pain is all but gone but I can see that Sam's miserable and hasn't said a word since leaving town. I sit him down in a rickety old chair while I check out the old cast iron wood burning cook stove. I can see that its been turned into a roach/rodent motel but the little buggers will scurry away as soon as I find enough wood to fire it up.

Searching around outside in the fading light I find a store of wood between the side of the cabin and the mountain and soon water's heating for the tin bathtub that's been stored in the rafters since Moses was a baby. But first things first. I drag the small table across the room and park it next to Sammy then grab an old metal bowl and the kerosene. I know I have to tackle the fly blown holes in his face, clean them out and bandage him up until we can get to a proper hospital or to Castiel and I tell him what I'm gonna do and he wants to know why bother because I'm gonna help him die, right?

"A deal's a deal," I say but for now I tell him to just sit still and, if it's any consolation, this is gonna hurt the maggots more than him but it's still gonna hurt like a bitch. I pour some of the kerosene into the bowl and pull what the box says is a nasal aspirator from the first aid kit. It's a rubber bulb thingy and it sucks up the kerosene from the bowl. Holding Sam's head at an angle, I shoot the stuff into his eye sockets and he screams bloody murder.

Now maggots score pretty high on my gross-o-meter but these little squishies did a hell of a job cleaning out Sam's sockets and preventing any infection and I salute them as they float around in the bowl, then pitch the whole mess out the door. Sam's shaking and sweat's pouring down is face and he's a mess and I tell him that before I can kill him, he needs a bath and some rest and my plan is, once I get him laid out on one of the cots, I'm gonna tell him a bedtime story about the angel who's gonna restore his eyesight...or else.

Once he's in the tub, and I'm washing my brother's disgusting hair, I flash back to when we were kids and tell him, "You know, I used to do this for you when you were a baby," and he smiles but it's one of those tight little smiles you get when you tell someone, who's a million miles away, something that means absolutely nothing in their grand scheme of things. "You used to get wicked cradle crap," I finish and he laughs, a real laugh that's been stuffed so far down inside of him for so long that it probably hurt coming out. Things haven't been funny in a really long time.

"That's cap," he tells me and relaxes a little more as I scrub away the filth and it's all true. I used to stand on a chair and bathe the goob in the sink, scrubbing his little noggin with Johnson's No More Tears while he splashed water everywhere and I wonder, as they roll down my cheeks, if he can hear my tears dropping into the water?


	7. Chapter 7

(Sam Winchester)

I can hear it in Dean's voice as he goes down memory lane to before I can remember anything about my life. He's crying and trying to hide it from me but I can hear now better than ever but I don't call him on it. When I was a kid I cried all the time but Dean never did. He still only cries when something really bad happens to him, or to me, or to someone he loves, even if he won't admit that he loves them, and it hurts me that he's crying over me yet again either for what's happened to my eyes or over who I've become. Either way it hurts to be the cause of still more of his pain.

When he left, Ruby said that it was good that he took off because I didn't need him. I needed to move on, to separate myself from Dean because he's afraid of my power and doesn't understand it and that he'd rather exorcise first and ask questions later. His body count is off the chart. He even killed an angel, she reminded me just before I evidently did the same thing.

The water in the tub is cold and Dean helps me up. I ask him where my clothes are and he says he's in the process of burning them as we speak and, wrapping me in one of the sleeping bags from the cots, I lie down buck naked, my skin still burning from the scrubbing with the lye soap and I cover my head and try to block out the world. The next thing I know the cabin is roasting hot and the excruciating sounds of the tow truck's ancient engine sounds in the distance as it makes it way back to wherever it is that we are.

Still wrapped in the sleeping bag I get up and take three steps and fall over something. I hear Dean drop an f-bomb outside and come running inside to help me up. "You need to call me before you take a stroll, Sammy," he tells me. I want to tell him that the only place I want to go is to the grave but I don't want to seem ungrateful or pushy because he might just get mad and change his mind about helping me die.

Dean gets me to my feet and we step out of the cabin. The truck come to a noisy stop and I hear both doors slam and Dean's hand tightens on my arm. "Do you know a girl with long dark hair and big eyebrows?" he asks and before I can stop myself I mouth Ruby's name. He says to me, "Yeah, I kinda thought so," and calls out, "Why'd you bring her, Iago?"

I can't see his face but I can hear the fear in the tow truck driver's voice when he answers, "She said she'd kill me if I didn't."

"Well, you can hit the fucking highway, Ruby you've done enough for my brother."

"Nice to see you too, Dean," she lies and I hear something, probably my duffel bag, hit the ground. "Here are Sam's things...and yours."

I hear another thump and then Dean's voice, "I appreciate the concierge service and here's your tip, bitch. Get the fuck out of here before you make me do something I'll regret."

"Like call up a hellhound?" she asks moving closer to me. I can hear her hesitating footsteps, smell her fear at Dean's threat but she continues to taunt him, "It'd be worth it to see you suffer," she sneers calling his bluff and I jump when I feel her hand touch my arm.

Dean takes a deep breath and I tell him, "Stop, don't do it," and I tell her, "You need to go Ruby, I'm finished, done."

"You don't need eyes to do what you do Sam, only your mind," she says and she has no idea how close I am to loosing it. The evil in her touch makes me dizzy and, sensing something's wrong, Dean's tell her to get away and I hear flesh on flesh as her hand rips away from my arm. No doubt Dean feels the need to take her on one more time and I hear him hit the dirt as she returns the favor.

"Stop it!" I yell and the two of them stop momentarily. Then I hear Ruby's surprised shout and I know Dean's sucker punched her. Able to control Ruby but never Dean, I shout at her to stop and she obeys and everything's quiet for the moment.

"He doesn't need you anymore, Ruby. He's got me," Dean tells her.

"For how long, numb nuts?" she asks, "Until your handler Castiel pulls your chain or you feel it's time to walk out on Sam again?"

I can't see his face but I know a crack like that would have hurt Dean and I know he'd lash out. I wait for the fighting to begin again but nothing happens so Ruby continues, "I've been with him day and night since you walked out on him," she says smugly.

Dean asks me, anger clear as a bell in voice, "You been sleeping with the bride of Skankinstein, Sammy?" he wants to know and I'm not going there and I'm not letting Dean go there, either.

"Why are you here, Ruby?" I ask her and she says to Santiago, "Tell them what's happening in Armidillo Infantes."

After a moment's hesitation the driver says, "There's been another divine visitor, an angel from above and she's looking for you."

"Me?" Dean asks and snorts.

Santiago proceeds to tell him, "Sí mi amigo, y el angel' el nombre de s es Lilith."


	8. Chapter 8

(Ruby)

"Lilith," Dean says, his voice dripping with venom, and I can see him fingering the nail in the leather sheath stuck down his jeans to protect it from the likes of me. He will let down his guard someday, to protect Sam, and that's the day he'll rue because, before I take his little trinket back to hell where it belongs, I'm gonna shove it in one of his ears and out the other.

"Iago, mi amigo," Dean continues his every word grating to my ears; "You need to get your family away from Armadillo Infantes now. Lilith's not an angel."

He grabs the duffel bags and Sam's arm and, as they head into the cabin, the truck driver runs up to him and tells him, "It is too late. My wife, my children, they wait at the church with all the others. The angel says that as soon as you and your brother come the Supreme Being will show himself to us all."

"Wait for us," he tells the driver and his cold eyes look through me. It's so hard for me not to kill him on the spot but I need Sam so I'll make nice until I don't need either of them anymore. Inside the cabin, Sam stands naked while Dean tries to help him dress.

"Do you mind?" he asks.

I smile. "It's not like I haven't seen it all before," I tell him and his lips tremble as he tries to keep it together.

"Wait in the truck, Ruby." It's Sam ordering me around again, something he only does when he's with his brother.

"What are you planning to do?" I want to know.

"Gank Lilith," the asshole answers then turns to me and points, "And her little dog, too."

Oh, I'm gonna love tearing him limb from limb and the thought of it makes me smile. "You think you're just gonna march right into the church and confront her?" I ask Dean and he gives me a 'Well yeah, duh, look' and I want to jack him up, just a little, make him bleed, just a little, and, as I savor the thought, Sam turns directly to me and says, "Help me get dressed."

I walk up to Dean and rip the shirt out of his hands and suggest, "You should change too, you stink."

He just laughs and taunts me, "Sticks and stones may break my bones..."

"and I can't wait," I finish. He laughs and strips off his shirt and jeans and stands naked before me, rummaging through his duffel bag, and I think he might be fun to play with...before I kill him.

"What _are_ you going to do, Dean?" Sam asks.

Without skipping a beat the insufferable little prick says, "I'm just gonna march right into the church and confront her."

"Lilith has no power over me," Sam reminds Dean, "I can kill her."

"Dude, with what? Your breath? You know you can't use the nail, it'll burn you."

"I can hold it long enough to do it," he counters but Dean and I both know that he can't. It will burn right through his flesh and eventually his bones.

"I'm doin' it," Dean says with finality and I want him to. I'd love to see Lilith gut him but instead I make another suggestion.

"Listen, that cathedral will be stuffed to the rafters with worshippers, demon and human alike, and if you don't want a body count in the hundreds then you need to do it, Sam, your way."

"No!" Dean says vehemently.

Sam cuts him off and says, "Ruby's right, there's a blanket spell..."

"Yeah, a spell that will kill every demon within thirty miles of the church and you forgot about the pesky virgin's heart," Dean finishes.

"Sam doesn't need the party tricks," I explain to him but Dean still balks. I wonder what's wrong with him and tell him, "I'll be right there alongside Sam to make sure you don't fuck anything up. I'll be sent back to hell just like Lilith and all the rest. I thought that would make you happy."

He looks at me, trying to read me, but gives up and simply says, "Not that I'm stupid enough to trust you or anything, Ruby, but it's not you I'm worried about."

And there it is, Sam's dirty little secret finally out in the open in front of God and everyone.


	9. Chapter 9

(Dean Winchester)

Yeah, I said it out loud and I watch Ruby's new face as it goes through a bunch of different expressions ending up with the bitchy one staring at me. "I could care less if you go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, Ruby," I tell her "but I sold my soul to the devil to keep Sam alive so no all encompassing demon exorcism."

"You know?" Sammy asks me his voice so low I can barely hear him.

"About the demon blood? Yeah, Castiel told me," I tell him and Ruby's hand goes to her throat.

"Castiel's here?" she wants to know and I see that the little bitch is actually scared.

"No," I tell her and add, more for Sam than for her, "He's the angel God sent to get me out of hell because 'they have work for me to do'."

"Do you think that work might be me?" Sam asks, his face a blank slate without his eyes.

"I don't think so," I tell him but I'm only guessing and add, "You were pretty well off the radar until you killed one of the Galearri, so I don't think Castiel knows it was you."

"I thought angels knew everything," he says and so did I until I found out that they're on a need to know basis and I tell him so.

"But he sent you to kill whoever killed the priest, right?"

"Not gonna happen, Sammy," I say in my best Dana Carvey doing George Bush voice.

"Even if he sends you back to hell for disobeying?" Ruby wants to know.

I'm flashing back to some godawful pain and fear but I made the deal and I'll live...okay, I'll die by it, again, if I need to. And besides, just because Sammy was force fed demon blood when he was a baby, it doesn't mean he's a demon now but I'm not gonna take any chances. "Disobeying? You think I'm on a short leash, like you?" I ask her. She sneers, definitely her best feature, then she feels it at the same time I do and we both look over at Santiago.

He's just staring at us like he's a million miles away and my brand is suddenly burning red hot and he smiles and his eyes turn black. I try and reach for the nail but suddenly I'm sailing through the air and into the wall where I'm hung up like a portrait of somebody's grandmother. Ruby goes for him and she's knocked on her ass and Santiago starts to move toward Sam.

I yell out but Sam's already turned toward the tow truck driver and he just holds out his hand. Santiago gags a couple of times then starts to puke up demon. When it's all over, there's a smokey, slimy, black pile of shit that burns away to nothing and I know that I'm right to be worried about Sam and that Castiel did send me to kill my brother.


	10. Chapter 10

(Sam Winchester)

Okay, I did it. No question now as to what I'm capable of, just what kind of fucked up freak I am or why Dean's angel wants me dead. It's done and an innocent man's been saved and I'm glad. Glad Mom's dead, glad Dad's dead and glad I can't see the look of disgust on Dean's face. But I can hear the anger in his voice.

"You did this!" he screams at Ruby and she laughs. Stupid, stupid, demon, I think when I hear her startled gasp and I know Dean's gone after her again, intent on killing her this time I imagine, and I don't really care.

I've learned all I want to from her, how to control my mind just enough to expel the demons and save people's lives. I know she has much more in store for me and it's tempting but not at the expense of what's left of my soul or of my well-being or Dean's. To get to me she now has to go through him, his promise of helping me die all but forgotten.

I hear Santiago moan and begin to move around so I shout to be heard over the fighting, "Dean! Ruby!" and they stop, panting like a couple of dogs, and I tell them we need to get to the cathedral before Lilith starts killing hostages. Someone grabs my arm and I jump. It's too easy to sneak up on me, too easy too kill me, too easy for Dean to forget about watching his own back while he watches mine.

"Take Iago and get him in the truck," Dean orders Ruby. I can hear her growl deep within the girl but she does as she's told. Dean holds me back and leans in to speak to me.

"No demon-killing spells," he reiterates and tells me that if you cut off the head, the rest of the beast dies and the others will scatter.

"You couldn't even get near _this_ demon and believe me; it wasn't nearly as powerful as Lilith," I tell him and he squeezes my shoulder.

"This one sneaked up on me," he admits and I tell him it'll happen again if he has to worry about watching out for me.

"Bobby should be just outside Baby Armadillo by now. He'll keep an eye on you," he says and I know now that I won't be able to get within a hundred miles of that church.

I won't be able to defy him and use Ruby's spell anyway and while I'm sitting around with my thumb up my ass, Dean's gonna die. "Fuck you, Dean," I say pulling away and tell him he has no idea what he's going up against.

"Maybe not but I'm goin' in with a mountain of battle rattle and a hellhound or twenty to keep the lesser demons at bay while I fuck Lilith back to the dawn of time," he says and for a moment I believe that he might just pull it off. Then I come to my senses and try to dissuade him from going it alone by suggesting that he at least take Ruby with him.

"What for?" he wants to know, "So she can make sure I die?"

I can't be sure that Ruby won't do just that so I suggest that he take Bobby with him but he knows me, doesn't trust me and says that Bobby knows what he has to do and I know Bobby's assignment is to contain me at all costs. My arguing won't do any more good and we might cause people harm if we keep Lilith waiting so I tell him we need to get going and he leads me to the truck. He's gonna drive and evidently Ruby's gonna walk because he tells her to get away from the truck. They start bickering again but I turn away from them because I hear something in the distance. I hear the rustling of wings.


	11. Chapter 11

(Castiel)

Well, well, what a motley crew, I think as I walk over the rise and see them standing there. Angel, demon, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, we're all here. Some worse for wear but all of us spoiling for a fight...except for Sam Winchester, who seems to be moping around, longing for death.

"Castiel," I hear Dean say and the three of them turn to me as I reach into the truck and touch Señor Santiago, tow truck driver extraordinaire, on the shoulder and he keels over on the seat, fast asleep. I walk over to the three blind...well, the one blind and the two myopic mice, and the girl has the good sense to take a step back in fear while Dean Winchester takes a step forward to protect his brother.

"I see you found my angel killer," I say and Dean's aura gets all spiky and turns from his normal deep red to a muddied red. I feel the need to be prudent as he still has the nail from Christ's cross, the only thing standing between him and annihilation.

"He didn't know the priest was an angel. Sam though it was a demon," Dean explains and I know just how Sam must feel. It's so hard to tell who the players are without a call sheet.

Ignoring Dean, I turn to the girl and her aura is a dark and muddied gray and she's putting on a brave face but fear's a hard emotion to contain, even for a demon. "You must be Ruby, the demon with a heart of gold," I say and Dean barks out an incredulous, bitter laugh and I know he's on the right track. She can not be trusted and her animosity toward Dean Winchester turns her aura black.

"Sam Winchester," I say turning to the tall drink of water with bandages covering his empty eye sockets. I'm pleased the Galearri got in at least one lick before dying but I know that it's not just the loss of his eyes that has turned Sam's true aura color to a muddy forest green, it's his utter despair and I tell him to cheer up, things could be worse, much, much worse. He knows that it will come to pass and smiles sickly.

"I sent you to Amarillo Infantes for a specific reason," I tell Dean.

He says "Bite me" and I remind him again of his lack of respect and he says "bite me, please" and, if I could, at this very moment he'd be on his way back to hell. But I know that he knows that, for whatever reason, I can't or I would have done it long ago and he never lets me forget it.

Right now it's time to test his metal, to find out what kind of game he brings, to see if he can destroy Lilith and save his brother...or not. I'm betting on not. I tell them of the gathering storm in the small, heretofore blessed town and that they need to make haste but the bane of my current existence balks and tries to blackmail me.

"Unless you help Sam," he says "He and I are heading back to the states for medical help."

I know he's lying but two can play at this game. I make a deal with him. Bring me Lilith's head on a platter and I'll perform a miracle and restore Sam's sight. He agrees but it's easier said than done for some angels. I'm not going to tell him so and, after convincing him to take the forked tongued Ruby with him, I watch as the intrepid trio heads back to Armadillo Infantes and their rendezvous with destiny. And me? I'm off to find Bobby Singer.


	12. Chapter 12

(Dean Winchester)

This is awkward, I think, each time Ruby's thigh rubs against mine when the tow truck hit a rut, which is roughly every 1.3 seconds. I still wish I could have left her behind but who knows what kind of hoodoo she can do and maybe witches really can fly. Hopefully I can foist her off on Bobby I decide and, when I turn to check my right hand side before I turn out onto the slightly less rutted road to Baby Armadillo, she's staring right at me.

"Cut the crap, Ruby," I tell her and she snickers, then I ask her again, "Why are you still here?"

"Because even Castiel knows you can't be trusted to keep Sam safe," she says with a look of disgust and if I were a smoker I'd have put my cigarette butt out on her forehead.

"I'm not the one pushing him to go up against Lilith armed with only a hand, to use his 'powers'," I say it and the words are like ash on my tongue.

"Sam has a gift," she counters and I think it's purely semantics., You say gift, I say curse. Whatever, it doesn't really matter, its just plain wrong and I tell her so.

"Listen!" It's Sam and he's really steamed, which is a huge improvement over zombie, "It doesn't matter. With or without your help, Dean, I'm checking out and it's my dying wish to use my powers to save your life but you're so bull headed that you'd deny me even this," he says hotly, "And so what if it's evil, it's not like I was ever gonna go to heaven," he then says softly.

"Screw heaven Sammy," I tell him, "Castiel promised to perform a miracle, to give you back your eyes."

"And you believe him?" Sam asks me and for the first time I have doubts and wonder, can angels lie? Nah, I think and it seems I have more faith in them than Sam does, which is totally jacked because he's the one who always prayed, still prays as far as I know. I look at Ruby again and I realize I don't really know what Sam does anymore, what he thinks, what he believes.

"Why didn't you just stay gone?" I ask her, "I left Sam more than prepared to keep on hunting without your help."

"All you left him with was a great big hole inside of him, a hole that I helped him fill up."

"With what? Your demonic bullshit?" I know she wants to hit me, hard, but she just takes a deep breath as the truck lurches once more.

"I tried to just sit back and watch but it was too painful," she says and we both turn to look at Sam. He turns his head as if to look out the window while Santiago's head continues to bounce off of his shoulder.

"He gutted all his pain, all his anger, all his fear and still he was empty inside, especially after trying like hell to get you out of the pit and failing time after time. He was empty until he started using his powers to save the people he could, until he started seeing the difference he could make."

"Yeah, but at what price?" I ask her because it sounds all good but I know the devil always exacts his due.

Ruby reaches over Santiago and places her hand on Sam's leg and says, "It doesn't really mattered what the price was, what the price may still be, because, just like me, Sam's willing to pay it."


	13. Chapter 13

(Bobby Singer)

I can't believe the price these kids have had to pay, the cost of fighting evil. The loss of their mother, their father, their very lives and now Sam's eyes, and, when I see Dean leading Sam into this fleabag motel, I wonder when will it be enough? When will God put a stop to the pain and suffering of what's left of the Winchesters and let them have peace?

I see the pretty girl following them and wonder if she's with Dean but when she gets a little closer, I start to get that old feeling in my bones and I know she's with Sam. She's in a different meat suit but it's Ruby. I tried my best to run her off but what does an old guy like me know? Sam assured me that she was only trying to help but, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, evil is as evil does and look at how things turned out.

Dean leads Sam to one of the beds and he lays down, his head on the old feather stuffed pillow and sighs like a hundred year old man, though he does smile and say "Hey, Bobby," when I come up next to him and take his hand.

"Can I get you anything?" I ask and he says some food would be good. Dean orders Ruby to stay with him and the two of us head out to the local cafe, which is empty. Everyone in Armadillo Infantes is at the cathedral waiting for La Mano de Dios but right now he's behind the counter stuffing his face with pineapple empanadas.

"Hey Mano," I say, stirring one of the pots on the stove, the chili inside still warm although the fire in the wood stove's been left to die out. Dean stops for a moment and gives me the evil eye but I need an answer to my question. It's a simple one and I hope he's got an answer, so I ask away, "Just what is your plan?"

"Gank Lilith," he says, his mouth full of deep fried goodness, and I want to hit my head on the wall. 'Gank Lilith', he says nonchalantly, like he just told me he was goin' for a walk in the park. I find a big, brightly colored bowl. It's probably been painted with lead based paint but that's the least of our worries and I start to ladle in the chili while Dean finds a container filled with tortillas and sets it on the counter. He then proceeds to join me at the stove where, finding a spoon, he starts to eat directly outta the pot.

"No time for good manners," he reminds me and besides, he's starving. He then tells me my part in the plan to gank Lilith, keep Sam at the motel. Don't let him out of my sight for a second. I look over my shoulder in the direction of the motel but he doesn't seem worried that Sam and Ruby are already gone.

"Sammy'll be sleeping like a baby for the next few hours," he tells me and pulls a prescription bottle of pills out of his pocket. Shaking it he adds, "Farmacia mexicana, impresionante!"

"Are you sure you wanna eat all that?" I ask him when he moves on to another pot of whatever. "You do know how bad demons smell, don't you?"

"Cast iron stomach," he says without missing a spoonful. The little bell over the door rings as it opens and a small girl stands in the doorway dressed in her Sunday best. Dean's demeanor changes abruptly from a chow hound to a combat ready soldier, his hand on the nail in its sheath. But this child is just that, a child and she has been sent to deliver a message.

The little girl walks up to Dean and he squats down in front of her and she smiles tentatively at him and says, "Nuestra señora bendecida dice que ella es cansada de esperarle." She then drops dead at his feet and I know the bitch can hear Dean when he cries out in shocked grief and pain and takes off at a dead run out the door.


	14. Chapter 14

(Lilith)

I hear Dean's answer to my little message and, as I sit in the ornately carved chair usually reserved for the ancient and decrepit church hierarchy, I find it music to my ears. I've grown quite bored waiting for him and his brother and the stink of mortals can be overwhelming in a place such as this. I'm stuck in a church, a gilded and marbled shrine to God, built on the backs and bathed in the blood of the faithful. Sacred ground at one time but no longer. I look around and find that there are more demons than humans in the pews, in the choir loft. It's standing room only for this smack down of the faithful and I wonder just where God is, where his angels so recently come to earth are?

As I wait, growing more enraged by the minute, I hear the murmur of the soon to be departed. "La mano derecha de Dios está aquí." "The right hand of God is here." They want to cheer as he walks purposefully through the huge double doors and halfway into the nave and stops but they are in a house of God and only whispers and hisses ripple through the crowd as he stand there taking in everyone and everything.

I had hoped the death of la nina would have enraged him enough to charge headlong into this church and into my clutches but he's taking his sweet time as his eyes search the crowd. His hand goes to his chest and when he pulls it away it's slick with the blood that has seeped through the material. I can hear them outside as can certain 'members' of the flock and they become agitated while others sit in raptured silence, that sickly look of divine inspiration on their faces. But the hellhounds simply mill around outside, a dozen of them, sniffing and whining, either waiting for the magic words or too afraid to enter God's house, something Dean Winchester failed to take into consideration.

"Dean Winchester!" I shout out as I stand up.

He has a startled look on his face because, instead of a child, I've taken a form more to his liking, a woman who looks like Santanico Pandemonium, except without the snake and dressed more modestly. I can see I've made an impression on him as he licks his lips. "It's been a long time," I tell him as he makes his way closer to the Presbytery and to the alter. The last time I saw him he was shredded beef and on his way to hell and to tell the truth, I've missed him.

"Nice meat Lilith," he says and I can hear the pain in his voice as he struggles to maintain the kennel just outside the door. To make it a little harder on him I slam the doors through which he's entered and the crowd reacts. The demons breath a collective sigh of relief, thankful for the safeguard, and the humans murmur and weep, awed by the divine spectacle.

I take a step closer to Dean and I can see his teeth beginning to chatter as his body reacts to the tremendous strain its under. His hand shakes visibly as he reaches for his weapon and I sit back down on my 'throne'. I can wait, keeping my distance until his hands are so numb that God's spike slips from his fingers and I can finally send him, not back to hell where I'll have to worry about him hot footing it out of there with the help of some misguided angel, but to his eternal damnation, the same place he hopes to send me.


	15. Chapter 15

(Dean Winchester)

Oh man, Lilith is smokin' hot! And about the nastiest thing this side of hell. "I've brought a few of my friends," I tell her and walk the rest of the way up to where she sits. She just smiles with her full, luscious, grown up woman lips and, as if she's read my mind, she gets up from her chair and lays one on me.

I hear the faithful gasp collectively and blather elatedly about my being 'besado por la madre bendecida', kissed by the Blessed Mother. Kissed by a mother-fucker's more like it. It seems Sam's right, I will bang any woman with a pulse, but Lilith, she's something else altogether. I push her back and I hear the demons in the church start to whisper excitedly and to exude a terrible stench.

"So, you've brought the hounds of hell with you," she says and asks, "Why haven't they attacked?" I wonder the same thing. I've never tried to raise them in a church before. Maybe they're not housebroken enough to be let inside and I wonder if I've screwed the pooch on this one.

It doesn't really matter because I've come for one demon and one demon only and my ass is a fair trade for her destruction if, strike that, _when_ the others tear me apart. I lied to Sammy. I don't think for a second that the others will leave when I kill Lilith because there's always another demon, probably one right here, right now, waiting in the wings to take her place. When its over, Castiel and his fine-feathered friends can deal with whatever's left here because, as soon as Sam wakes up, he and Bobby will be on their way back to the states and as far as I'm concerned everything will be copacetic.

Except for the amount of pain I'm in and the amount of blood I'm leaking, I'm doing all right. Pulling the spike from my jeans, Lilith and I know it's time to rock and roll and in my best outdoor voice I begin. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.."

Santanico's eyes open wide and she grimaces and groans and the peanut gallery erupts in hisses and screams until she holds up one hand. Everyone remains where they are, including the stunned parishioners.

"Ergo, draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica, adjuramus te ... cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque æternæ perditionìs venenum propinare..." I continue and, instead of the demon inside her heading for the hills, Lilith just starts laughing.

"Vade, satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciæ, hostis humanæ salutis...Humiliare sub potenti manu Dei; contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine... quem inferi tremunt..." I continue and, though it's having no effect on Lilith, a few of the weak lesser demons are having trouble and hosts begin to keel over or pitch forward as the demons try to escape. The unpossessed are finally starting to realize that something's very wrong when their friends and neighbors start to turn on them.

I need the hellhounds and I need 'em now. I can hear them in a frenzy as they growl and howl and throw themselves against the thick wooden doors of the sanctuary. I turn to go back to open them up but before I can take two steps I feel a blinding pain in my back and my right shoulder is suddenly paralyzed. My chest is burning like fire and, looking down, I see Lilith's bright red acrylic nails sticking out of my body. Desperate to stop me she has speared me from behind with only her hand.

My right arm goes numb along with my hand and the nail falls to the marble floor where it clatters and rolls and stops next to the very first pew. Before I can get over the shock of being shafted, literally, and scream for them to stay away from it, one of the faithful, a young man in his early twenties, stoops down to pick it up. He screams and drops it and, clutching his burned hand, turns to his wife for solace. She shifts the crying baby in her arms to her opposite shoulder and her eyes turn black and she snaps his neck with her free hand.

Another, this time a demon, tries its hand at retrieving the nail and picks it up and looks stupidly at it. Within a second or two it starts to vomit itself up and out of the host, an old man whose heart never stood a chance and Lilith drags me back and slams me onto the alter, a fitting sacrifice, not to God but to Satan.

I take a few minutes to reflect on just what a jackass I've been for underestimating my enemy, how much stronger she's become over the past months and, as I look around for some help from Castiel, I reflect on what a jackass I've been to ever trust an angel.


	16. Chapter 16

(Castiel)

"Nice to see you again, Mr. Singer," I say as he comes into the motel room, foodstuff in hand, baseball cap on his head.

"You!" he says and goes immediately for the knife on his belt but Ruby yells out for him to stop before he can stab me and I can blind him, too.

"Bobby don't! It's Castiel, Dean's angel," she explains to him.

Without taking his eyes off of me, he puts his containers and bowl on the table.

"Where is Dean?" I ask. He closes his mouth stubbornly and tries to do the same to his mind but I see Dean squatting before the tiny angel, then rushing out of the cafe.

"Sam!" I say loudly and when I get no response, I move to the bed on which he lays, impervious in his drugged sleep.

"He's to stay here, to not interfere," Bobby says passing on Dean's orders and ignoring them, and the messenger, I simply touch the younger Winchester on the forehead and he sits bolt upright and tries to get up.

"Dean says for you to stay put, Sam," Bobby tells him pushing him back against the pillow and for a moment I think the disoriented boy will acquiesce but I send him the mental image of the girl and his brother's angry and rash reaction.

Pushing the older hunter's arm away, he gets to his feet. "She killed that little girl with just a thought," he says and I nod, though I know that she was an earthbound angel and, having served her purpose, is back with her Lord. "She can do the same to him." It's both a statement and a question and I let Sam form his own answer.

"But he says for you to not interfere, that he can do this without 'your help'," meaning Sam's unnatural power I remind him and I know, that if he had eyes, they'd be blazing with angry indignation.

"Well screw my brother," he spits out and starts to head to the door.

Bobby and I stay out of his way while the ever faithless Ruby takes his hand and places it on her raised arm. Together they travel the short distance down the street to the Temple of the Immaculate Conception as Bobby Singer, who has girded his loins with all kinds of weaponry, and I follow.

As we come up to the church Ruby balks. Sam can't see them but he can hear them and he knows there are hellhounds nearby. I raise my hand and the entire pack gathers at the steps, panting, slobbering and growling in between short bursts of intense infighting but basically content to stay where they are until he calls them.

Opening the heavy wooden door, I've made sure they can now enter and when Dean's agonizing cry comes from inside the church, Sam swallows hard, Ruby flinches and steps back, Bobby takes the name of the Lord in vain and I suddenly feel vindicated. The hellhounds head inside and pandemonium reigns.


	17. Chapter 17

(Ruby)

I hear the hellhounds, the most awful sound I've ever heard, except maybe for the screams of Dean Winchester.

Sam can hear him and he charges blindly up the stairs and into the cathedral in the general direction of the screams and directly into the melee where both demon and those not possessed try to flee from the hellhounds. I'm trying to stay with him but he's literally ripped from my guiding hands.

Taller than all the rest, I can see him stumble and go down onto his knees and, kicking and punching my way through the mass of inhumanity, I finally reach him. Squatting down on the ground next to him I yell into his ear, "You can stop this!"

"Help me up," he shouts back and, as we rise up, he holds out his hand and doesn't say a word and the hellhounds, Dean's last vestige of any hope of getting out of this alive, are gone and the cathedral becomes quiet enough to hear a pin drop and the tremendous crash as the temple's doors again slam shut, trapping everyone inside.

"Sam Winchester!" Lilith says stabbing Dean once more with a blood-encrusted knife. She picks a spot where it will hurt a lot but not kill him and he tries to hold it in but to no avail and even I'm getting creeped out by his anguished sniveling. With her words and his scream, the flock is reanimated and we're in what can only be described as the most monstrous and diabolical 'political' convention ever.

Demons, eight and ten deep, mass around Sam, pulling on his clothing, shouting his name, along with that of Azazel. They've chosen the boy demon as their king while the others have chosen to throw their lot in with Lilith and the remaining faithful, those who had come to the cathedral to see La Mano de Dios and the Holy Mother, cower in abject terror as their "Virgin's" eyes turn milky white and their 'rock star' screams.

"Lilith, stop!" Sam shouts out.

She just laughs and the crowd becomes quiet again except for the muted weeping of the Dean Winchester delegates as she swings her hand downward and her knife blade plants firmly in the muscle of his thigh, buried to the bone. There's no way he can keep that one inside. Hell, there's no way I could keep that one in and he screams yet again and his faithful begin to wail.

But Lilith seems to be finished with him for the moment and she leaves the knife where it is and steps down off of the dais. The crowd parts like the Red Sea to make a clear path from her to Sam and, seizing the opportunity, Bobby pushes through the throng and makes his way to me and offers to give me back my knife.

"It won't work on Lilith," I tell him, "But it will work on the others. Go save Dean if you can," I add because I want someone with Dean, someone who loves him and who'll be devastated when the son of a bitch finally bleeds out, someone who'll keep him from trying to stop us.

"Stop or what?" Lilith asks Sam with a sneer thinking she holds all the cards and that Sam won't sacrifice himself and me just to pay her back. But she should have thought things through a little more before tricking him into thinking that the priest of the Temple of the Immaculate Conception was a demon, before forcing Dean to face her and especially before torturing his beloved big brother.


	18. Chapter 18

(Bobby Singer)

"Oh my fuckin' God," I say when I get up to where Lilith's got Dean and I actually slip in his blood. I can't believe how many times she's stabbed him in the short window of time between now and when he ran out of the cafe. I've never seen the results of such rage in a demon before and I know, if Castiel doesn't do something, Sam will have no choice but to exorcise her and I don't think I can take it if I lose both of 'em.

I take Ruby's pig sticker as the demons in Lilith's camp start to move in and I stab the closest one to me. It screams and winks out of existence and I try to move on to the next one and get clobbered. I hate the fact that I'm old and not as strong or as fast as I used to be but the killer instinct the US Army and the army of darkness has instilled in me kicks in and they're starting to fall like timber in a microburst.

These demons are strong and smart, the cream of the crop, and it's like slogging through a rice paddy with a full pack on but I can see a little daylight around us. I'm paying the price, bleeding in a bunch of places and I'm pretty sure my nose is busted again but it's a small price to pay to keep the bastards away from Dean so he can at least die in peace.

I look around for Ruby and she's stuck to Sam like white on rice as he faces down Lilith. I hold up her knife and beg her with my eyes for some help but she shakes her head. So I look around for Castiel and I can see him making his way around the perimeter of the church, down the north aisle, past the north transept and finally up to the alter, never once stopping to smite a demon or to offer comfort to the still living or absolution to the dead and dying. He finally makes his way to us and, not that he lifts a finger or anything, the pack moves back and I'm thankful at least for that.

"Can you save him?" I ask and he looks down at Dean and then looks back up at me with that fucking, half retarded, serene look of his and just says, "It's God's will," and I want to punch him in the face.

"Not...God's...will," Dean rasps out, his vocal cords all but severed by Lilith's knife, and he lifts his hand and grabs Castiel by the arm. I see a look of revulsion cross the angel's otherwise blank slate of a face and I take a swing at him. But it's not God's will that I cold cock him because he steps back out of my reach. Dean's grip tightens even more on his arm and he's dragged back and Dean begs, "Please help him."

Castiel, an angel of supposed infinite mercy and compassion, looses his cool and snaps at a dying man, "Don't you think I would have if I could?" and I know right then and there that this particular angel is a lyin' sack of shit.

"Bullshit," Dean says and puts everything he has left in him into sitting up. "The nail," he says and points to the center of the crush of demons. I don't have a clue as to where it is or how to get it to him or him to it. Dean realizes it's game's end and he tells me to get out and to take Sammy home then he falls back onto the alter.


	19. Chapter 19

(Sam Winchester)

Castiel sends me another picture of Dean and my heart breaks, shatters this time. He's sliced up and bleeding and in so much pain that I can almost feel it washing over me like his blood washes over the marble alter.

Turning, I put my hand out for Ruby but instead of her supportive hand I feel the cold skin of a demon possessed human snatch it and press it against it's a forehead as if in a blessing. Totally grossed out I pull my hand back but now know the answer to another piece of the puzzle.

Ruby is nowhere to be found but I don't care. For what it's worth, she helped me when I needed help and, though I can't say I'm exactly grateful, I don't begrudge her a hasty retreat. I have to wonder, though, if she can get far enough away, fast enough and think, maybe not.

I understand Ruby's urge for survival but I truly don't understand Lilith. She knows that her power is useless against me and, unless she's picked up a trick or two since the last time we met, it's pretty stupid of her throw down against me. I'm beginning to think that this is much more than a vendetta.

Maybe Lucifer's getting anxious in his rising and needs me to either shit or get off the pot. Either save my skin and let Lilith kill Dean so I can go full on demon or sacrifice myself to save Dean and fade away, you know, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. My suspicions are confirmed when someone or something clutches at me and says with passion, "Lléveme en la guerra contra Dios" "Take me to war against God!" and I know why I'm here, in this place, at this time.

The time for choosing sides is now. Not just for good verses evil but a choice within the ranks of the damned. Many of them no longer think Lilith is the chosen one but that the dubious honor is now mine by way of my resurrection and Azazel's bloodline.

The demons quiet down and I know Lilith is on the move again, on her way back to Dean and if she, or Satan himself, ever had any doubt about me sacrificing myself to save my brother then hell hasn't learned squat about the Winchesters. And just like Ruby taught me, I raise my hand and begin to chant and my head begins to pound and I can feel the blood flowing from my nose and I silently tell Dean that I love him even as I say goodbye.


	20. Chapter 20

(Castiel)

Dean lays back on the church's alter, the marble tiles all around it red, awash in his blood but I know he's not close to death...yet. His bulldog of an 'uncle' stands sentinel over him keeping the demons, who, if they could, would dip their fingers in his blood and mark their faces in celebration, away.

I look over at the two contenders for demon of the year and, running true to form, I see Sam's right hand demon, Ruby, start to back away from him. Using some ridiculous mojo bag she heads quickly for the door, which will open for her and her alone, salt or no salt, and I watch as she slips out.

Lilith and Sam move closer to one another and if the younger Winchester's not careful she might just reach inside of him and show him his spleen so I send him a mental kick in the ass, a picture of his beloved brother along with my assurance that I can save him...but only if Lilith is destroyed.

My little coming attraction seems to have done the trick because Sammy's in rare form as he holds his right hand out towards Lilith and begins the incantation. It's the same one Dean tried to use on her to no avail but with Sam's 'juice' it starts to work.

The temperature inside the cathedral suddenly drops to about thirty degrees and then rises again to nearly one hundred as hosts begin vomiting up demons en masse, all of which quickly catch fire and burn, the dying embers drifting to the floor. The lesser demons are all gone within minutes and the hosts, who are not dead, with my help simply go to sleep, their memories wiped clean when they awaken.

Lilith is old and powerful and a tough nut to crack and Sam continues to hurt and bleed until she finally starts to twitch like a heroine addict. Bobby watches Sam intently, probably wondering how long he can hold up under the pressure and when the incantation will turn back on the youngest Winchester, sending him to hell as well. But I'm not worried about Sam because I only have eyes for Dean.

As I look down on him, a sly smile of satisfaction on my lips, he starts to wretch and a cloud of black slips from between his lips and I turn to root Sam on. Lilith screams her death knell and her demonic being, so thick and so dark that it sucks in light like a black hole, spews forth and ignites with a thunderous clap after which the cathedral is deathly quiet.

I see Bobby Singer out for the count, knocked back against the chapel wall and Sam Winchester lays where he has fallen, bloodied and beaten but still alive to fight another day. I hear Dean's voice again and wonder why in the hell he's still alive.

"What happened?" Dean asks groggily, rolling over onto his side.

I hunker down next to him and ask him, "Have you ever heard of a Judas goat, Dean?" He shakes his head and more demonic black slips from between his lips. "A Judas goat associates with sheep and is readily accepted and is trained to eventually lead the lambs to slaughter. Your brother just became that goat," I tell him and I know what he would say if he could speak, "Whatever, dude" but I continue anyway.

"The demons believed he was one of them, the chosen one in fact, and they followed him to this place where they could worship at his feet. But he chose to send them all back to hell or worse when he invoked the Lord himself to destroy them all even though to do so meant death for him, too." I bend down to get a better look and instead of the hate that is always in Dean's eyes, there is only confusion and misery.

"Is Sammy...?" he croaks out, his breath bubbling the black ooze on his lips but he can't say the word 'dead'.

I look over and Blind Melon Sammy is still out cold and in no danger of being sent to perdition despite his all encompassing demon vanquishing incantation. Sam Winchester was never in any danger of going to hell and I tell Dean this little secret but what has happened is not getting through that thick skull of his.

"But he has demon blood in him," he whines and I laugh in his face and begin to school him on angels and demons.

"Although cast out of heaven, Azazel is no demon," I remind him, "He is in fact, first and foremost, an angel. You however," I'm only too pleased to tell him, "sold your soul to the devil, spent forty years in hell, more than enough time to become..."

"...a demon," he finishes for me. Dawn finally breaks over Marblehead and Dean Winchester starts to laugh, then tries to cough up a blackened lung and, as I wait patiently for my payoff, he sucks in a ragged breath and rasps it out asking me, "If I'm a demon, then why am I still here?"

I shrug and tell him, "Although it's too late to help you, for what it's worth, you have a friend in high places."

He asks, "Is it God?"

Dear Lord, I can't believe his arrogance and I tell him so and he says, "Thanks."

"If it wasn't for _her_," I tell him, "you'd have been gone long before this."

When he realizes it's a female angel who's stayed my hand, he laughs and tells me, "Ha! A girl kicked your ass."

What he doesn't realize is that "the girl", once fallen, was raised back up to her lofty position because of him. Her only reason for being cast out in the first place eons ago was her desire to be human and to bear children and she's now content to be the brilliance of fertilizing water and the fruitfulness of the earth and to watch over one piss-ant of a human being named Dean Winchester. "The girl" outranks me and needs neither a host nor a reason to come to earth and, if I'm lucky, I've stayed under her radar and will be left to my own devices until this all plays out.

Realizing that his brother has damned him back to hell, Dean looks at me his, lip curling. He tries to speak and chokes on the foulness springing forth from within him and I think I see his eyes close in death but a golden glow suddenly surrounds him, keeps him from slipping away entirely, and I know who it is that is coming.

When she arrives, all the beautiful stained glass windows in the cathedral shatter and shards of three hundred year old rainbow colored glass rain down sounding like a thousand wind chimes in a hurricane. The stucco walls crack as does the marble flooring and chunks of painted ceiling falls, crashing to the ground and, similarly, buildings crumble all over town and the winds blow and the skies opens up pouring rain, belching lighting, deafening with thunder and it's true, hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.

Anahita, the Immaculate One, blonde and beautiful, even for an angel, stands before me and shouts, "You will not do this! You will not do this to him again!" and the earth shakes beneath my feet.


	21. Chapter 21

(Anahita)

Castiel stands before me in the guise of a slightly psychotic stock broker. I resist the urge to burn the clothes from his body because his willing host, although protected by the angel, is not at fault and carrying around such a sanctimonious and conceited supreme being must be disconcerting as well as insufferable.

"Why are you here?" Castiel asks.

I reply, "You know damn good and well."

The stockbroker curls his lip because he's just been caught trying to sell one of God's investments short. He goes on and tells me, "Dean Winchester needs to go back to hell. He's faithless and disrespectful and ..."

"Won't kiss your ass?" I interject and he glares at me.

He then says slowly as if I'm stupid, "and...he..is...dangerous."

I look around me, at the dead and the living, and for a mass exorcisism I'd say the Winchesters did a bang up job, especially with the Osama Bin Laden of demons, the ever-elusive Lilith. I heard the angels break into song when her spirit departed this realm for the lowest chamber of hell and I, for one, feel vindicated though I wish it had been me that God had commanded to pull Dean Winchester from hell and not Castiel.

In His infinite wisdom part of Dean's 'work' on earth was to show me that he was worth saving, worth sacrificing myself for, and that allowed me to return to my rightful place in heaven where I can now keep an eye on him and his brother. Pushing forcefully past the Angel of Wall Street I walk to where Dean lays and think, my poor baby. He is in so much pain. Fear is radiating off of him in waves as is his inner demon as it tries to make its way back to hell and safety. When he sees me he winks and I know all is not lost.

God has sent me to deliver his true and faithful warrior and even though I don't have the power to change him from what he has become to what he once was, I can save him from going back to hell. I can keep him from dying yet again so he can fight on and hopefully, in time, I can be with him again in God's true house and not some travesty of a church such as this.

I kneel down beside him and laying my hands on him I take away his pain, his fear and fill him with hope and joy. The demon is tucked carefully back inside of him where it belongs and he sits up, body completely renewed. He smiles at me and says, "Ah, Angel? Next time you might want to put on some flowing robes."

It then dawns on me that I am corporeal and that I am naked. Knowing that no one can see me unless I wish it, I smile at his impudence and stand up to help him to his feet. He quickly looks around amongst the bodies in search of his brother, who lays unconscious near the head of the center aisle, surrounded now by a pure white aura.

I go to Sam, followed reluctantly by Castiel, and kneel down beside the boy and look up at my fellow angel as he stands over Sam's prone form, a smirk on his face. Dean comes up to kneel beside me. I wonder if he will try to pinch my ass but he just brushes Sam's hair back from his forehead and tells me, "Cas here says he can help Sammy. Promised to give him back his sight if he destroyed Lilith." I feel like smiting Castiel all over again and 'out' the smug bastard.

"Castiel can't help Sam," I tell Dean, "He's not powerful enough." and we watch as Castiel squirms under Dean's murderous gaze. I can feel Dean's disappointment, his anger at being used, but he needs to know that, in war, this is the way angels sometime do battle. Threats, coercion, lies, fighting fire with fire and he says he understands but I know the lines are smearing too much for him, now. He likes to know with certainty what's good and what's evil, who's good and who's evil and what he's confused about most now is himself.

He gets it that Sam's blood was mixed with an angel's and that the whole demon king thing was wrong but he wants to know how he fits into the grand scheme of things now. I tell him that God's plans always includes a certain symmetry, a yin to a yang, a light to a dark, a Dean Winchester to a Sam Winchester and he smiles.

"My seeing eye dog to Sammy's blind dude," he says and I can see into his heart. I know he will unselfishly and gladly spend the rest of his life being his brother's keeper but what I mean is the symmetry of an angel with the blood of the fallen to a demon with a pure heart.

I can't change what has happened to Dean Winchester but I can help Sam Winchester. I take Dean's hand and closing my eyes I open my heart to his and tap into his pain. The pain of his father's sacrifice hits me hard as does his pain for Sam's plight and, though its almost unheard of for an angel to cry, I have been blessed and tears begin to slip from my eyes. They trickle down my cheeks and fall onto Sam's face running into the voids where his eyes should be.

Moments later Sam moans and begins to stir and, opening his eyes, he recognizes me and whispers, "Angel?"

"Dude!" Dean says shaking his brother's arm and when Sam smiles up at him Dean just keeps on shaking him and repeating, "Dude!"


	22. Chapter 22

(Sam Winchester)

"Dude! Dude!" Dean keeps repeating, shaking me. Maybe it's the ground underneath me that's shaking and has me feeling like I'm lying on a cheap motel Magic Fingers bed. Angel stands up and looks down on me from what seems like ten feet up. She's beautiful and glowing and I'm thinkin' it's because of her and not Castiel that I can see again.

I slowly sit up and feel the dried blood that's run down my chin from my nose crack as I smile. Dean leans in to hug me anyway and then, holding him at arms length, I ask him, "What happened?" I hear Castiel make a noise of disgust and say under his breath, "How original," and I think I really don't know anything at all about angels. Evidently Angel hears him, too, and, in full on Mother Superior mode, she tells him to put a cork in it. I can't believe it but angels sulk and he moves away from us and back to the alter.

"You did it, Sammy," Dean tells me and, looking around, I wonder with great apprehension just what it is that I've done.

Dean continues and tells me, "Lilith's gone, left the building, bit the dust, gave up the demon, is picking turnips with a step ladder." He rattles on and I gather that the incantation worked. I breathe a sigh of relief but then I realize I'm surrounded by hundreds of bodies and when I get to my feet I wish I was still blind.

"It's all right, Sam," Angel says soothingly, "These were glorious and righteous deaths."

'Righteous deaths' she says and not 'righteous kills' but I don't feel any better. It must show on my face because Dean grabs my arm and says, "They're not all dead." and, to show me it's true, Angel raises her arms and people begin to stir. They sit up or get to their feet and, though they were all witness to one heroic struggle between good and evil, she says they won't remember any of it. As far as the villagers and the outside word are concerned a minor earthquake and not an avenging angel has hit Armadillo Infantes and the surrounding mountains.

Although the death toll is moderate the devastation to the town is almost complete. The fact that most if not all of the townspeople were inside the Cathedral at the time "it" hit, combined with the fact that the Temple of the Immaculate Conception didn't crumble like the other structures in town, saved most of their lives. A miracle in itself. they begin to run out of the Cathedral, el mano de Dios, el asesino del ángel and la madre bendecida all quite forgotten.

Bobby is the last one up and walks cautiously toward us mesmerized by our old friend. Not knowing why she's here he asks, "It's _good_ to see you, ain't it, Angel?" As an afterthought he adds, "I still call you Angel, can't I?" and she laughs.

Before she can answer, Castiel's wings rustle and we all turn toward the bloodied alter. He scowls and says testily, "Her name is Anahita and she's known as "the Immaculate One" to every other angel but me. To me she's "the pain in the ass," and with that, he's gone.

Angel snorts a laugh and Dean, thinking it's a sneeze, says, "Bless you." We all stare at him like he's grown that second head but she seems to glow even brighter. "Oh, yeah, right," he concedes, she doesn't need blessing. He sighs and silence begins to stretch out before us until Bobby asks about Lilith.

Before Dean can start, Angel says, "She's kicked the bucket, snuffed it, rode off into the sunset, popped her clogs."

Dean repeats, "Popped her clogs?"

He begins to laugh and that does it for the rest of us. We all start laughing until tears are running down our faces. Angel nods in satisfaction but, even after a much needed and completely insane laughing spell, things still suck out loud. She hears the villagers as they start to return to the church and says, "Its show time," then tells us, "It's time for you all to go."

We stand around like a foundering ship without a rudder until she takes me by the arm and tells me to listen to my heart and to my brother. She then smiles fondly at Dean and tells him to trust in me and in himself and to help me to keep faith. To Bobby she just says, "Take these 'ijits' home."

Anahita begins to shimmer brightly as she unfolds her wings and in a flash she's gone but not before leaving the believers, including us, with the image of an angel dressed in flowing robes, hovering above Armadillo Infantes. It's an image not bright enough to blind us but more like a beautiful heavenly watermark and I'm more confused about angels than ever.


	23. Chapter 23

Epilogue

(Busboy)

I'm here with the them in the San Isidro Mission cafe just over the border in El Paso, Texas but who's gonna notice me? I'm just the guy who throws the crap covered dishes into the big gray tub and wipes the tables with a rag more disgusting than the tabletop could ever be. I'm the invisible dude with bad breath and zits and the hearing of a comic book superhero.

The Impala is parked out in the lot and the two of them are huddled up in one of the booths having a heart to heart. They completely ignore me while the waitress, who's back in the kitchen promising to give the cook a hand job if he hooks her up with a dealer who'll sell her some primo black tar, waits on their order. I'm lugging a tray of condiments to refill the table setups and set up shop a few booths away and listen to them as they talk about what happened.

"What I wanna know, what I've been afraid to ask you since we left Armadillo Infantes, is exactly what happened," Sam says.

Before he answers any question Sam asks Dean usually pauses to decide whether to tell the truth or to lie, a 'tell' not lost on Sam or on me. Dean takes a drink of his water and it looks like he's struggling. "Just a puke-a-thon worthy of the Guinness Book of World records," he finally says.

Suddenly I'm interested in what he's hiding and so is Sam. "And Lilith just went out with a whimper, like all the rest?" Sam says doubtfully.

"More like a bang. Knocked you and Bobby out cold," Dean laughs after the fact.

"Are you're sure she's gone?"

Dean reminds his brother that some angel told them she was. Sam's still skeptical but Dean seems to be willing to bet the farm on anything this particular angel tells him...so it can't be Castiel.

"So why didn't I go...out, too?" Sam then wants to know.

I've been wondering the same thing and, as Dean's pause ahead of this one grows longer and longer, I move a table closer to them and I'm all, sticking straight out from my goofy looking head, ears.

"Because you were only exorcising demons," Dean answers and looks toward the kitchen to see if the waitress is coming back then to Sam to see if he gets it.

"But Azazel's blood, my powers..."

"Are God given, Sammy," Dean says simply and as shocked as I am I don't drop a grain of salt, bad luck and all.

It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in but Sam's so convinced he's evil that he dismisses the notion and so do I. He comes up with his own theory, "Angel saved me didn't she? She kept me from going to hell."

Dean looks down at his hands on the table and the silence stretches out for a good minute before he says, "She didn't keep you from going to hell, Sammy, she kept me."

I squeeze the catsup container so hard that it erupts out the top like a volcano and drips down my hand like blood but they don't notice. Sam just closes his eyes and sighs a deep one.

"Think about it Sammy. It all makes sense. Azazel was a son of a bitch but technically he was a fallen angel. I went to hell and we all know what happens to you there," he finishes with a shrug of his shoulders and I feel for the guy...but not too much.

"Is that why you didn't want me to use the spell? Why you went alone? Because I'd send you back to hell along with all the other...?"

"Dude, it's okay," Dean says softly but the unspoken word must be a bitter pill for him to swallow now and he's silent for a little while again before he explains to Sam, "I didn't want you to use the spell because, even though Ruby's agonizing death would have been totally made of win, I didn't want anything to happen to you."

After digesting what he's been told Sam says, "This so totally sucks," then adds, "So I guess this means we can't hunt together anymore."

"Bullshit," Dean says, "We've still got the nail and an angel riding shotgun now. I don't ever, ever, ever wanna go back there, Sammy, but I will if it means we can kill off even one more demon as powerful as Lilith," he says selflessly and I want to gag. He's just stupid enough to do it.

I head back toward the kitchen and as I pass their table I grab Dean's hand and hold it down and tell him, "I've got a message for you."

It's true you never forget your first love...or your first demon and Sam recognizes me. "Ruby" he yells out in warning but not before I grab a steak knife and drive it through Dean's hand so hard that the blade tip snaps off in the wooden table.

This is not over, it's just beginning and leaning in, my borrowed eyes turning milky white, I tell him, "Tag you're it."


	24. Chapter 24

Some of you found the first person point of view confusing so I've headed up each chapter with the name of the hunter/demon/angel/busboy relating the tale. Hope this helps.


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